Little Owens Family Tree Blog

On January 15th, John and Rachel and myself set out to the piney woods of southeast Texas to Lufkin, Woodville and Town Bluff to see where some of the Hicks family lived and are buried.  We stayed at San Augustine park at the Sam Rayburn Reservoir. It was a beautiful spot. We’ve found that we need to stay at least two nights since set-up and tear down takes some time so a one night trip isn’t worth it. This was Rachel’s first time to join us. Since we only have a queen bed and the dinette converts to a bed we only have room for one other to join us. In the next few posts I’ll break down the different towns we visited.

January 9, 2023 Happy New Year! My goal for this blog last year was to share what I have found about the Little and Owens families and to learn more about those who came before us. The 60 blog posts covered our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and second great-grandparents. This year I will be adding any new information I find to the current posts, along with sources so you might want to go back and check periodically at the people you are interested in to see if I’ve found any new information. This year we are planning to go visit a lot of the places our ancestors have lived to visit the cemeteries and clean the tombstones. I also need to visit the courthouses as well to find new information that isn’t available online. I’m also hoping to learn more about finding wills and deeds which should bring new information to light.  I would also like to write about some of the homes and places our ancestors lived in, add posts for our third great-grandparents, which looks like it ...

December 31, 2022 Happy 156th birthday to my paternal great-grandfather, Andrew Crawford Owens. 31 DEC 1866 - Born in Cedar Bluff, Clay, AL, to Andrew Thomas Owens , age 29, and Martha Louisiana Raines , age 24. He was the fourth of eleven children. His older siblings were Lora Ulala , Lille Leota and Marcus Cleveland . 22 DEC 1888 - Birth of sister, Romie Ophelia [Hunt County, TX]. 16 JUN 1891 - Birth of brother, Cicero Taylor [Merit, Hunt, TX]. 1893 - Moved to TX. 15 JUN 1893 - Birth of brother, Hoyt Lafayette [Merit, Hunt, TX]. 16 JUN 1895 - Birth of son, Henry Grady [TX]. 24 NOV 1899 - Birth of son, Raymond Watt  [Hunt County, TX]. 1900 - Residence - Justice Precinct 5, Hunt, TX. 22 MAR 1903 - Birth of sister, Hinda Agnes [Hunt County, TX]. 22 DEC 1907 - Married Hettie Lou Goodwin in Scatterbranch Community, Hunt, TX, in a buggy, in the rain. She was 19 and he was 20. 22 SEP 1908 - Birth of son, Rayford Morris [Hunt County, TX]. 4 MAY 1910 - Birth of son, Cecil...

Happy 160th birthday to my maternal 2nd great-grandfather, Bernard B. Meineke .  There are so many different spellings that I’ve found for his name. I’m going with Bernard since that is how I found it spelled the most. Other spellings are Bernhart, Banhart, Barrhart, Banhardt, Barnhard, Bernhard and Banshard. I’ve also seen Meineke spelled as Minacor, Meinecke, Mineki, Manecke, Meinecke and Mineke. I’m really not sure how much of what I’ve found is correct due to all the different spellings. 27 DEC 1862 - Born in Harris County, TX to Albert Meineke , age 44 and Mary Nolte Meineke , who was 39.  I’m unsure about his siblings as several census records are missing. I am going with these since they lived near him on the 1900 census. Theado , Charles and Henry . According to the 1900 census, his mother said she was the mother of eleven children and that three were living so perhaps the others I found are his siblings but I’m not going to include them until I have more proof. ...